They say that natural gas is a more dynamic study in geopolitics than oil. Yes, petroleum is what makes the world go 'round. But, once you get it to a super-tanker, and you can ship it anywhere. Natural gas, of which the world consumes 3,000 billion cubic meters per year, is much harder (or more expensive) to transport. You have to build miles and miles of expensive pipeline to get it to your buyer. So whatever countries your pipeline runs through, or to—you'd better stay friends.

Today I'm sending you a video by STRATFOR on the much-discussed potential energy deal between Russia and China. Ideology aside, the two countries would seem like a compatible couple (Russia is the world's largest exporter of raw commodities, China the world's largest importer). But are they ready to tie the knot with a pipeline that would takes decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to build?

Today I'm sending you a piece on Ecuador's recent move to change the terms of its contracts with oil investors to keep more of the returns in the state. As we watch the world's energy market, political details like this are essential to know. The article explores the geopolitical implications of the move and the how key investors are likely to react.

This is nothing short of the real world with real consequences on the amount the meter reads to fill up your gasoline tank, your investments abroad and the overall worth of those dollar bills in your wallet right now. You don't get this kind of information on your typical media news networks. The truth is, this event is one you may not have heard about - not only do you have to keep your ears to the ground, you've got to know where to look....

With the current financial crisis, we have to be even more astute in locating worthy investment opportunities. I've written lately about choices we're facing as a country – but we have choices as individuals as well: choices that demand solid insight to make well-informed decisions and recognize opportunities at a time when they're not as plentiful as they used to be. It's not enough to know what's happening on Capitol Hill or Wall Street, we must expand our investigations to a global perspective.

I send you Outside the Box each week not to make you comfortable but to make you think. Usually it is on some financial topic, but life is more than investments. Economics is not an isolated discipline (more like an art form I think) so we have to have a real understanding of the world around us. This week I offer two essays which made me both think and reflect. We live in a world which wants easy solutions to complex problems, and wish as we may, will not get easy solutions which will work.

The first essay is by Pewter Huber on the reality of energy production. We all want to be able to "go green." How realistic is that? The second is by my friend George Friedman on torture and US intelligence failures.

Peter Huber is a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and the coauthor, most recently, of The Bottomless Well. His article develops arguments that he made in an Intelligence Squared U.S. debate in January. George is well known to OTB readers. He is president of Stratfor and was with the CIA (as was his wife Meredith) before they founded Stratfor, what I think of as the premier private intelligence agency in the world.

I suggest you put on your thinking caps and take some time to read both of these very important essays, and enjoy your week. I am off to Orlando and the CFA conference....

The hottest media topic of the New Year is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. And as I was reading the New York Times on Tuesday, I came across this sentence in one of the articles that was staggeringly truthful and more than a little unsettling in its implications for me as an investor. 'There are other ways to construe the context of this conflict of course. But no matter what, Israel's diplomats know that if journalists are given a choice between covering death and covering context, death wins.' Now, I'm NOT trying to get into a debate about the rights and wrongs of either side, but if you're an investor, and you're trying to make decisions about where this conflict might drive oil prices, for example, then context is everything. And according to the New York Times, if you're relying on journalists for context, forget it. But you do have an alternative....

Kudos to my friend George Friedman and his crew at Stratfor. If you didn't see the article in this week's Barron's about Stratfor's analysis of the geopolitical risk premium built into oil prices, you missed a really good piece of work. You've probably heard Napoleon's quote that 'Amateurs discuss strategy, and professionals discuss logistics.' If you want a perfect example of how that quote plays out for the markets, take a look at Stratfor's article below. It's precisely the kind of sober, fundamental research that makes Stratfor my invaluable source for geopolitical intelligence. No matter where you're looking at putting your money today, the impact of energy prices simply can't be overstated. The commodities trade, US and foreign equities, debt and interest rates, everything is being driven by energy prices right now. Whether you're trying to factor energy as a direct input into the price and consumption of manufactured goods or dealing with monetary policy's impact on the dollar and debt markets, you're implicitly making an energy trade....

This week I want to share with you one of the more important tools in my arsenal for keeping up with what is going on in the world. As I've told you before, George Friedman and his team at Stratfor are my go-to guys for geopolitical intelligence. Their insights into this facet of the world are simply without peer. Now I want you to see their Intelligence Guidance which they publish each Friday for the upcoming week; last week's edition is below....

The greyhairs among us remember the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973 and that economists of the time called it an "exogenous" shock to the system. For the first time, geopolitical events had a huge impact on world energy markets. All the financial models...

This is a Special Edition of Outside the Box from my friend George Friedman and Stratfor. You've heard me say before that these guys see the world in a different way, but this piece just makes it crystal clear. There are serious rumblings about a...

Introduction This week in a Special Outside the Box we look at the discussion of alternative energy sources, specifically, ethanol derived from corn or sugarcane. The Stratfor piece discusses the economic implications of ethanol usage; geopolitical ramifications...